The Last Promise by Richard Paul Evans Page A

could keep an eye on him as she painted. She could not risk leaving his side.
    There was a new blank space on the wall in her studio. She had taken her favorite landscape to the new apartment— I Girasole di Arezzo, she called it. It was a picture of sunflowers she had painted last summer just outside the Tuscan township of Arezzo. She already missed it. She wondered why she had given that one to the new tenant.
    Why does a man come alone to live in Italy? she wondered . She had lived in Italy long enough, had met enough expatriates, to know that whether anyone knows it or not, no one lands in Italy by accident. And if you listen to their excuses long enough and care enough to ask questions, you will eventually discover the real reason they are there, and it usually turns out to be only a shadow of the reason first proffered.
    She thought of her own reason for being there and of the man who had brought her. Where was Maurizio now? Where would he be tonight? Or with whom? A darkness rose up in her thoughts. If she didn’t love him, why did his philandering still make her crazy with jealousy? Was jealousy a sign of love? She wasn’t sure, but if so, maybe there was hope for her marriage yet, as Maurizio was wildly jealous of her. As jealous as a Sicilian, Anna had said.
    During their second year in Italy, as they prepared to rent out part of the villa, they had had some electrical work done. One of the electricians, a young, handsome apprentice maybe three years younger than Eliana, had paid more attention to Eliana than Maurizio thought necessary. Maurizio threatened him so fiercely that the young man dared not even look at her, would not speak to her again—not even to request payment.
    But if Maurizio loved her, how could he cheat on her? What part of his love for her allowed him to rendezvous with a different woman in every city? Or was it a different woman? She honestly didn’t know if he had just one mistress or many. If she had to choose, it would be many. Dozens. Hundreds. That way they could remain faceless. That way it wouldn’t be about how she compared to another woman. It would be more about him. But his dalliances were not the only hardship in their relationship. She was equally jealous of his most demanding mistress—his work. I do it for you, he said. You and Alessio. But that is not what she or Alessio needed. What they needed most was his attention and companionship.
    The reality was that Maurizio would live his life this way whether she and Alessio existed or not. Even when he was home, which was less than one week out of the month, his distance had become increasingly obvious.
    He rarely left the house while he was in town, as he was always too tired for going out to dinner or to the cinema. I eat out every night, he said. I’m tired of eating out. I want your cooking. He intended it as a compliment and never understood why it didn’t please her.
    Four years earlier, fearful of the rut their relationship was falling into, she began looking for something that they might do together. She had loved to dance, once. So had he. They had met dancing. So she spent a week looking into dance classes. She found an adult class taught weekly at the community center in Grassina. She arranged with Manuela to watch Alessio one night a week, and she put a small deposit down to hold their place.
    When she told Maurizio what she had done, he laughed out loud. Only after he saw how angry it had made her did he take her seriously. He told her to go without him. Take Anna; she needs something to do. Surely there are other women you could dance with.
    She forfeited the deposit.
    When they were together, there was little more than polite conversation. No discussions about life or death or God or health or schooling or cooking. No more discussions of art, hers or others. Nothing of beauty was ever talked about. No theology, or poetry, or philosophy. At this point she’d welcome a travelogue, but he no longer even spoke of